It has long been known that the proper operation and useful lifetime of electronic equipment and particularly that of computer apparatus is substantially affected by the electrical power provided to the equipment as well as the environment in which the equipment operates. Accordingly, numerous methods and apparatus have been provided for improving both the manner in which power is supplied to such apparatus and the environment in which the apparatus operates.
For example, with respect to the electrical power supplies, it has been known that power outages and line transients can seriously effect the operation of computer circuitry causing serious memory loss, mechanical damage, and the like. Accordingly, it has been conventional to provide normal A/C power supply to the equipment, but to further provide for a D/C backup supply to the memory and other storage elements of a computer system whereby upon A/C power failure, at least the volatile memory will remain intact until such time as the A/C power is restored. Additionally, it is further conventional to provide for a plurality of spike and surge supressor means, voltage and line frequency regulators, filters, and the like, in an attempt to remove the effect of these line transients and the like on the computer equipment.
With respect to these electrical problems alone, the prior attempts to solve the aforementioned problems have met with several drawbacks. First, the individual components for spike and noise supression, filtering, voltage regulation and the like, collectively can result in a great deal of expenditures. Moreover, these provisions for A/C power outage provide for D/C backup supply to prevent the volatile memories from losing their information, however, the continued operation of the computer system itself, which generally works under A/C power, must be terminated until the supply line voltage is restored.
Additional problems have been encountered with remote computer terminal facilities with respect to the environments in which they operate. It has long been known that serious problems are caused by such computer apparatus operating in overheated states and in conditions wherein the ambient air quality is deleterious to the equipment. With respect to the heat problem, excessive heat of such electronic equipment frequently results in information loss of the memories, mechanical damage and lifetime problems with respect to integrated circuit chips, expansion and contraction of mechanical joints, cracking of printed circuit boards, and the like. These inadequate ventilating problems are exacerbated by the fact that ventilation requirements are often difficult to predict in the engineering of such equipment. Ventilation requirements are typically increased during product life cycles as additional add-on equipment and features are created which are not taken into account in the original design process, often simply because of cost constraints in the original designs resulting in cooling capabilities being marginal at best.
With respect to other problems associated with the ambient air in which such computer terminals operate, serious problems often result in the proper operation and useful lifetime of such equipment due to the air containing deleterious gas, corrosive components causing oxidation of electrical contacts and the like, and other undesirable matter, particulate and otherwise, present in the ambient from ozone, cigarettes, dust, moisture, and the like.
A conventional approach with respect to the ventilation and cooling requirements of remote computer terminals, instrumentation packages, and the like, has been to provide a tightly controlled environmental room in which the equipment resides. In the alternative, self contained environmental control apparatus is frequently provided with respect to individual pieces of apparatus. With respect to the environmental room approach, it is readily apparent that this solution can be cost prohibitive as well as generally impractical in situations wherein a plurality of remote equipment locations are necessary as, for example, in the process control arts. Moreover, with respect to the approach of providing each individual piece of equipment with self contained apparatus for improving the environment, this approach also has obvious drawbacks. First, such a solution adds to the bulk of each piece of equipment which must have separately dedicated filters, ventilator fans, and the like. Secondly, expenses of an overall system are substantially increased due to the need to provide environmental conditioning apparatus for each piece of computer equipment resulting in unnecessary duplication. For the aforementioned reasons, it has not been uncommon to find individual pieces of computer equipment which, for example, are so poorly ventilated as to require replacement of the design ventilator fan with a retrofitted fan having greater capacity.
Still further with respect to environmental protection of such equipment, fire detection and extinguishment features have been limited to the entire room housing the equipment. Detection is thus too late to provide early protection of the affected equipment and requires very large quantities of suppressants because the entire room must be filled. In addition, there exists danger to occupants of the rooms with suppressants. The installation of dedicated detection and extinguishing features to individual components has also frequently been cost prohibitive.
For the foregoing reasons, an improved protection system for electronic apparatus was highly desired and sought after for use with a plurality of remotely located units such as portable computer systems or the like. More particularly, such a system was desired which provided electrical power to such units free of the aforementioned problems regarding loss of power, line transients and the like. Additionally, such an improved system was desired which economically provided a controlled environment for each such unit without requiring dedicated apparatus for each unit to control the environmental problems associated therewith.